Dear Colleague,
When business leaders talk about a company's "right to win," they're talking about the unique strengths that give it an advantage in the marketplace.
For independent pharmacy, we've traditionally defined our "right to win" as accessibility and patient relationships and trust. Patients can get face-to-face help from someone who knows them, knows their medications, and is invested in them and their community's well-being. That's absolutely true, and it is important.
But I think we're selling ourselves short. How we talk about the importance of community pharmacies needs to be updated and re-framed.
Independent pharmacies are more than accessible. They're more than trusted. They're integral to the infrastructure of American health care.
When most people hear the word "infrastructure," they think of things like national defense, roads, bridges, airports, power grids, water systems, and broadband networks. Take away a bridge and traffic stops. Take away electricity and the lights go out. Take away community pharmacies and patients lose access to medications, preventive services, clinical expertise, and trusted health care guidance.
Health care is part of America's national infrastructure. No one would ever question how important hospitals, physician offices, and emergency departments are. Community pharmacies are just as important.
Every day, community pharmacists provide services separate and beyond traditional filling and dispensing that often go unrecognized. They help worried parents determine whether a child's symptoms require a trip to urgent care or can be safely managed at home. They explain complicated medication regimens to seniors who are overwhelmed by instructions from multiple physicians to improve adherence. They calm fears after patients read something alarming online. They help patients navigate insurance problems, locate hard-to-find medications, compound customized medications, understand side effects, and determine whether a medication is working as intended.
That's infrastructure. It's rarely measured and almost never fully appreciated by policymakers. Yet patients depend on community pharmacies every day. Health care in America would be in chaos without hospitals and physician visits. The same can be said about American health care without community pharmacies.
If community pharmacy disappeared tomorrow, America wouldn't just lose places that dispense medications. It would lose millions of conversations, interventions, recommendations, and acts of service that help keep people healthy and out of higher-cost settings of care.
The challenge is that infrastructure doesn't maintain itself. Roads need investment. Bridges need maintenance. Power grids require resources to remain reliable. The same is true for community pharmacy.
If policymakers want a stronger health care system, they must support policies that invest in allowing independent pharmacies to provide the crucial services they contribute to America's infrastructure. Communities cannot afford to lose one of the most accessible, cost-effective, and trusted parts of health care.
That's our right to win. Because American health care works better and the U.S. infrastructure is stronger when independent pharmacies are strong.
Best,
Douglas Hoey, Pharmacist, MBA
NCPA CEO
P.S. NCPA's Annual Convention themed "We are Main Street," is earlier on the calendar this year — Oct. 3-6 — to make it more convenient for you to attend. The hotel deadline is Sept. 11. Don't miss it!
